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DISCUSSION
expresses something intended by the speaker; and it must count as fight
insofar as it conforms to socially recognized expectations. 21Undistorted
communication implies that all validity claims are agreed upon by the
participants in dialogue. As soon as any of the validity claims is
doubted by a hearer, the communicative act stops. In this case,
"argumentative discourse" should take place. In a discourse, the force
of the argument is the only criterion, and the correctness of norms is
corroborated by consensus achieved through argumentative reasoning. 22
We can see that Habermas' theory of universal pragmatic corresponds
with his theory of rationality. In fact, the claim of rationality is assumed
by Habermas to be inherent in the formal presuppositions of speech
acts and dialogue. It is interesting to see that Habermas' distinction
between "elocutionary" and "propositional" structures of utterance
correspond to his notions of practical rationality and instrumental
rationality, respectively.23
(4) Finally, I should briefly refer to Habermas' assumptions with
regard to human psychology as an anthropological premise of his
theory of rationality. Contrary to the structuralist perception of the
individual as passive embodiment of social relations, Habermasian
theory finds the structural definition and requirement of a rational
society already present in the logic of the personality development of
individuals. For Habermas, the basic dynamics of personality develop-
ment is a move toward increasing autonomy, self-consciousness, and
responsibility. Identity, Habermas argues, is produced through two
successive stages of "socialization" and "individuation". 24 While the
stage of socialization is represented by the development of "natural
identity" and later "role identity", the stage of individuation is charac-
terized by development of an "ego identity".25 It is at this stage of "ego
identity" that the process of need-interpretation -- which until then
depended on an uncontrolled cultural tradition -- can itself become the
object of discursive will-formation.26 Habermas' psychological theories
are mostly influenced by Kohlberg's stages of moral consciousness, re-
formulated within a general action-theory framework. 27 It is interesting
to see that Habermas' positive conception of personality development
not only accords with his theory of rationality, but also finds parallels
between historical developments and personality dynamics.28